


respite

by andchaos



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: College, First Date, Intimacy, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Romance, it won't let me put INTIMACY in all caps but imagine that it is, mac is annoying and dennis is in love with him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-04-11 20:11:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19116859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andchaos/pseuds/andchaos
Summary: Mac comes up to visit Dennis at college junior year, alone for once. Their boys' day turns into a night out — one that Dennis would probably classify as a date, if they were anyone else.But maybe, privately, he still thinks of it as their first.





	respite

**Author's Note:**

> a self-indulgent novelization of [this post](https://lesbianfreyja.tumblr.com/post/182826437525) (don't read it if you don't want this ENTIRE thing spoiled)
> 
> content warning for recreational use of acid and weed
> 
> happy pride! :) x

“Is that blood?”

Mac pushed Dennis’s flailing hand out of the way and grabbed his shoulder, shoving him so that he could get a better look at the spot he was grabbing at on his back. Dennis bit his lip, trying to glimpse his expression over his shoulder, but Mac was giving nothing away; after a long moment, he snorted and punched Dennis on the arm.

“Fucking relax, dude,” said Mac at last. He swiped at Dennis some more like he was brushing dirt off his shirt. “It’s sap. You barely scraped it. Come on, what do you say we start heading back? It’s gonna get dark soon, dude, and I don’t wanna be stuck out here.”

“Why?” Dennis snorted, bumping his shoulder into Mac’s hard as he passed. “Thought you were supposed to be some big, tough guy. Scared of getting lost in the woods overnight?”

Dennis grinned at him. Mac scowled, his chest puffing up like it always did when he felt threatened in some way, but a faint rose blush settled over the bridge of his nose and the tops of his cheeks. Dennis’s heart thumped.

“Fuck you. I’m not scared of anything!” said Mac. He turned to watch as his foot kicked at the dirt. “It’s just getting late, and I’m starting to come down. We’ve been walking around here since noon. I’m bored.”

“Oh, come on. Really?” Dennis frowned. He laid his hand up against one of the trees nearest to him and squinted at it. After a couple of seconds, when he let his vision zone out, the lines in the bark started to wriggle and undulate around his hand. Dennis laughed, pulling his arm back and turning toward Mac. “No way, man, I’m definitely still tripping.”

Mac gaped at him, lashing out to shove at his chest.

“That’s so unfair. I took more than you!”

“Don’t get mad at me, it’s not my fault,” said Dennis. He pushed Mac back.

“Get off me!”

“You get off me, you’re the one being an asshole. Hey, alright! Truce! Shit,” he said, wringing out his hands. He felt tingly everywhere Mac had touched him, like his skin could see tracers. God, he knew why one of his frat brothers had told him to bring a chick out here with him instead of Mac; kissing on acid was supposed to be awesome. “Look, man, I don’t wanna talk to anybody sober or like, see anyone back at the house. What if we just…started heading back in that direction and see if maybe we can catch the sunset or something?”

Mac squinted up at the sky, or what little of it they could see through the trees. On instinct, Dennis tilted his head back too.

“Yeah,” said Mac at last, rolling his shoulders around. “Yeah, that would probably look pretty cool.”

“Totally.”

They gathered the backpack they’d taken out there to store water and weed and headed back pretty fast. Night was falling more quickly than Dennis had anticipated and he didn’t want to admit it, especially not to Mac’s face, but he frankly didn’t relish the idea of being stuck in the forest while he was still seeing things. He quickened his pace, and Mac didn’t say shit when he had to break into a faster walk to catch up.

Ultimately the sun set as they were making the thirty minute trek back to the campus; they caught snatches of it through the trees and as they walked along the side of the road, but by the time they had any chance to stop and admire it, the sky was already the bright blue of early nightfall. They sat on some grass on campus for a little while, but Mac wouldn’t stop complaining and after ten minutes or so Dennis gave up and brought him back to the frat house, ushering them up to his room fast so he wouldn’t have to talk to any of his brothers. His head still felt a little light and loopy, especially once they got indoors.

“I’m gonna take a shower,” Dennis said, shrugging off his sweatshirt the second that he stepped inside his room. “Do you wanna order us something to eat? Maybe we can watch a movie or something.”

Mac had already dropped the backpack and threw himself onto Dennis’s bed, but now he sat up and rifled through it for their weed stuff again.

“Hmm,” Mac said, already busy picking stems out of the bottom of a Ziploc.

Dennis wasn’t entirely convinced that Mac was listening; he squinted at him for a few seconds, watching him reach over to grab some papers from the top drawer of Dennis’s desk, before he gave up and headed into his bathroom.

He felt like a new person after showering, and much more sober — but looking in the mirror for too long was strange, and made him feel like his brain was skidding away from him again. His face seemed off for some reason, like his eyes were farther apart than usual or his nose didn’t look quite the same; he couldn’t put his finger on what it was, exactly, just that something felt very unfamiliar about the person in the mirror. He ended up skipping half of his usual skincare routine, telling himself he would remember to get it done before he went to bed, and headed back out into his room.

“Hey.” Dennis finished toweling off his hair and tossed it onto the bed beside where Mac was lying stretched out, texting somebody. He nodded at his phone. “Anything good? Did you…order us that pizza or whatever?”

“No,” said Mac. He pushed himself up and bounced off the bed, patting Dennis on the shoulder. “I smoked half a joint and thought about using your computer for porn since you have that good rich kid internet speed.” Dennis pulled back from him; whatever was showing on his face must have been really good, because Mac laughed. “Oh relax, I didn’t do it. Hey, I’m gonna piss real quick. Let’s go out to eat!”

Dennis spun around slowly as Mac marched past him and commandeered his bathroom. He found his voice right as Mac began to close it.

“I thought you didn’t want to see anybody sober.”

Mac frowned. “So what? Now I want pancakes.”

“Oh, it’s pancakes now?” he asked, amused. He rolled his eyes, head shaking.

“…Yeah,” said Mac. “Now I’m gonna—”

He began to shut the door again. Before it could click, Dennis called out to him again.

“Um, you can use my shower, if you want,” he said. “You must be covered in dirt and sweat too.”

Mac shrugged.

“Nah, I’m good,” he said. “I left you half the joint, it’s all yours.”

Dennis wrinkled his nose. He wasn’t at all keen on going anywhere with Mac when he looked _and_ smelled like he’d been running around the forest tripping on LSD for six hours, but before he could insist on it, Mac grinned at him brightly and shut the door. Dennis sighed and grabbed the stubbed-out joint.

He smoked the rest of it absently while he flipped through one of the textbooks that he’d left open on his desk, abandoned and forgotten the minute he got the message that Mac’s bus was pulling up. He knew he should study tonight — he had midterms coming up, and there was no use ruining junior year before it really got started — but his mind still felt cottony from drugs. Even as he skimmed the highlighted passages that he wanted to review before Tuesday, he was zoning out.

At the very beginning of their trip this afternoon, they had gone off-path in the forest and found a river winding through the fallen leaves. Mac had wanted to cross and go explore the rest of the woods, untamed and away from the cleared off trail, but Dennis was worried about slipping on the rocks; if his Chuck Taylors got soaked he was going to be walking around like that for the next six hours or more, and he knew he would fixate on it and ruin his high. Mac argued and shouted and begged with him, only to be met with more steadfast refusal and crossed arms. Finally, he spotted a growth-stunted tree that had been cracked all along the base, probably from a recent storm or burrowed animals or something, and spent twenty minutes trying to knock it over.

He misjudged his aim a little, and when the tree finally collapsed over the river with a loud creak and crash, it wasn’t straight across the banks. It rolled a little ways down before finally coming to a halt, tipped diagonally across the water. The triumphant, elated grin that Mac had turned around on him then followed Dennis all the way through the rest of the trip — even though he was sweat-slicked and red and had scrapes on his arms from the bark, even when he later fell into a ditch and looked pathetic as fuck limping and bitching until he forgot about it. Dennis was thinking about how happy he looked.

He was still turning over Mac grinning at him, not taking in the page he was studying at all, when the bathroom door opened behind him. Dennis spun his chair around. He realized the joint had finished at some point and tossed it into the  ashtray that he kept by his tin of pens.

“Hey,” Dennis said idly. He skimmed over Mac’s body — he had showered after all, and he had Dennis’s towel wrapped around his waist as he started rifling through Dennis’s clothes without asking.

“Dude, I thought I was coming down but I am _fucked_ up,” Mac declared. He tossed some of Dennis’s nicer button-ups to the floor, ignoring his protests. “Soap is so weird, dude. Why does it feel like that? I’ve never felt it like that before.”

Dennis swiveled his desk chair in place, laughing as he watched Mac struggle to find a suitable shirt to borrow.

“Yeah, bro,” said Dennis. “Everything feels really real for me too, it’s so weird. I was looking in the mirror earlier and it didn’t even look like me.”

Mac finally found an old, crumpled-up shirt at the bottom of the drawer, a souvenir from one of Dennis’s Aspen vacations as a teenager, and yanked it on as he crossed the room.

Dennis’s breath caught a bit as Mac padded closer, the weed making him hyper-focus on Mac’s furrowed brow as he ducked down and peered seriously into Dennis’s face. Dennis swallowed, careful; the electricity jolting between them was dizzying, and terrifying. He didn’t breathe again until Mac turned away and yanked on a pair of Dennis’s basketball shorts that Dennis mostly just slept in, along with the sweatshirt that he’d brought with him from home but left in the room before they headed out into the sun earlier.

“No, you still look just as ugly as you always do,” Mac assured him as he got dressed.

Dennis threw a textbook at him.

“I have the angles of a god and the perfect base tan left over from summer,” he said sharply. “Don’t be a dick to me just because.”

Mac rolled his eyes. Dennis scowled at his back as he spun around dramatically.

“I don’t wanna go out to eat,” Mac complained, throwing himself onto Dennis’s bed. Dennis swiveled further to face him. Mac squirmed around on the bed, a weird look on his face, as he dug around for something beneath his back and swept a bunch of Dennis’s school stuff out from under him and onto the floor. “I wanna do something. I don’t wanna sit somewhere and get served, I wanna…I don’t know! I wanna go out!”

Dennis wrinkled his nose. He slumped down further in the chair, thighs spreading out as he practically laid down in it.

“Going out was your idea,” he reminded him. Mentally, he ran down a list of places within walking distance from campus. He frowned. “I don’t wanna go to a bar or club or something.”

“No! No way,” Mac agreed, so emphatically it almost sounded like he was arguing. He pushed himself up, the mattress jumping under him as he sat suddenly and pointed a finger at Dennis. “There will be so many people there, and like, so many fucking frat bitches and undergrads pushing everyone around and blasting their shitty music. I’m not doing that, Dennis. No way.”

“Okay, okay,” said Dennis, holding his hands up placatingly.

He dropped them to his lap and looked down, watching them mess together as he tried to come up with a solution that would fit all of their demands. Mac groaned, kicking his legs out in the air.

“Den- _nis_ …”

“I’m thinking! I’m thinking, Jesus Christ,” he muttered. Something to do that didn’t require drinking or sitting around…Dennis pushed himself upright and clapped his hands together, jabbing a finger in Mac’s direction. “Oh, shit! Oh my god, dude! I know what we can do!”

“Really? What?”

Dennis grinned at him.

“Come on,” he said, lurching up from his chair. He reached a hand out, and Mac let him yank him up without asking anything else. Grinning, Dennis gestured for him to follow and headed down the stairs.

 

“What is this?” Mac ducked to squint out the front windshield, until his seatbelt tightened and yanked him back. He wrestled with it, cussing the car out, until he finally got it undone and could put his hands on the dash and nearly press his nose to the glass. “Dennis? What is this? Dennis? Where are we? Dennis, why are we in a field? Dennis? Dennis?”

“It’s a fair, bro.” He finished backing into a spot next to some other cars, none of which seemed to be parked along any sort of lines or with any regard for anybody else, and cut the ignition. “Special thing, only open for a couple of weekends a year.”

“What’s fair about it?”

“It’s — No.” Dennis turned to squint at him. “No, dude, it’s a fair. Like…a carnival, but bigger. You know, rides, fried food, bunch of drunk rednecks and kids. How do you not know what a fair is?”

“Why are there rednecks out here?”

“I don’t know, dude,” he sighed, unbuckling too. “People from all over the place like to wear American flags and be racist, I guess. Can we go in?”

“Yeah! Yes, yeah.”

Mac insisted on trying to hop the fence, even though admission was only five bucks a person. Dennis was waiting for him by the front entrance when he came over, looking furious.

“Caught by security?” Dennis asked mildly, handing the girl sitting at the ticket booth a ten.

“There are cops all over this goddamn place,” said Mac, shoving at the turnstile and barreling through. “Like, what do they think is gonna happen? That there’s just gonna be street trash roaming around trying to get into their fucking fairgrounds and shit? It’s bullshit!”

Dennis patted him consolingly on the shoulder.

“Let’s get some wristbands,” he said as they got a little further into the crowd. He pointed off into the distance. “I think the booth is somewhere over there. Come on.”

They charged twenty bucks a pop for them, a price gouge that felt like anti-capitalistic, anti-American, anti-Dennis Reynolds ass-plowing, and which he made very sure to tell Mac all about as they strapped the bands around each other’s wrists and got into line for the first big, loud ride that they saw. Zoning out staring up at the structure while Mac patted him on the back and assured him that they would go piss near a food stand later to get back at them, Dennis became very aware that he still had the acid in his system. The colored lights flashed through the entire rainbow as it ran up and down the structure, and Dennis stared, mouth open, as it went through a couple of cycles.

“Bro,” he felt someone shaking his shoulder, “bro, come on! It’s our turn to get on!”

Dennis tore his gaze away from the bright lights and blinked to get Mac’s earnest expression into focus. He looked stressed, pulling on Dennis’s arm.

“Bro,” said Mac, “move up!”

“Wha—?” Dennis gazed around until he saw that the line in front of them had already shuffled up and disappeared through the entry gate. The kid manning the control panel was shouting something at him, eyebrows pulled together. “Oh! Mac, what are you waiting for? Let’s go.”

Mac was yelling something else behind him; Dennis ignored it as he wrapped his hand around Mac’s wrist and tugged him forward. They flashed their wristbands at the kid and jumped into two empty seats next to each other. Mac yanked desperately on the unmoving overhead bar until another boy came along to pull it down and buckle it for him, dodging Mac’s hands as he tried, clumsily and forcefully, to help.

They screamed their way through three rides, elbowing (with impressive restraint, Dennis thought) to the front of only one of the lines, before Mac fell on his head after turning upside-down for too long on the Zero Gravity spinning ride and he got grumpy. They stumbled off together, Dennis doubling over laughing while Mac rubbed at the top of his head.

“That ride was all a bunch of bullshit,” Mac snapped. “They rigged it! They’re trying to make me forget what happened so I won’t sue them, but I’m gonna! I’m gonna sue the shit out of these bastards!”

Still grinning, Dennis wound an arm around Mac’s shoulders and jostled him against his side.

“You looked really badass, though,” Dennis said, sobering a little as he slid a glance to the side. From the way Mac straightened up, cheeks pinking and angry expression going slack, his praise had hit its mark.

“I did?”

“Yeah!” said Dennis. He slid his hand up to squeeze Mac at the place where his shoulder met his neck. “Oh, one hundred percent, dude. When you were crawling along the side and kicking your legs out? We were going, like, a million miles an hour, bro. It was cool.”

“Really?” Mac turned to him, and he was beaming again. Written on his face was the kind of triumph Dennis usually only saw after twenty minutes spent shouldering at a decrepit tree until it crashed down over a river so that they could cross without getting their shoes wet. The kind generally reserved for sweaty, hard-won elation. “You think I looked cool?”

Dennis rolled his eyes, arm slipping off Mac’s shoulder.

“Sure,” he said. “Hey, why don’t we take a little break?”

Mac’s forehead creased.

“Are you still hungry, bro?”

“No, no.” Dennis shook his head slightly. He turned a megawatt smile on him, guaranteed to make Mac buckle; sure enough, he was already nodding. “Let’s sneak into the drinks tent, buddy. Cool off with some beers.”

“Oh, that’s a great idea, dude!”

They high-fived, and immediately broke into an argument about the fastest way to get to the big tent a few rows over that had MUST BE 21 AND OVER hung in huge letters out front.

Even after hopping the back gate, though, they pulled up short. The beer was all being served by a row of older women standing behind a long desk, who needed to see special drinks tent wristbands before they handed over anything — wristbands they could only acquire by showing ID to the big guy out front. Dennis had just turned 21 a couple of months ago, but Mac would be underage until April; no way they would let him buy a beer for a friend without seeing his ID too. Even Dennis’s flirting didn’t win them any favors, and after several tries, he was bodily escorted outside the tent. He made his way, grunting and cursing, around the back to where Mac stood waiting and gestured for him to jump back over the fence to him.

“What do we do now?” said Mac. He stomped one of his feet. “My high is already way past its peak and I need a beer!”

Dennis arched an eyebrow. “Okay, relax over there, Wade Boggs. No one’s ever died from a lack of beer.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Dennis,” he said, brandishing a finger in his face. Dennis blinked mildly at it, nudging his wrist away after a moment. “Follow me here: If you do too much acid, then your heart starts going really fast. That’s why you need to smoke weed after! It’s so that your heart gets a chance to slow down again, and that way you don’t get a heart attack.”

“Right…” Dennis frowned. “So then why do you need to drink beer, though? Your heart should already be all balanced out.”

“Right. Okay,” said Mac. Before Dennis could step back, Mac lashed out and his palm cupped around Dennis’s shoulder, sliding steadily up. His hand finally settled on the side of his neck and Dennis’s skin warmed beneath his touch. He felt frozen, unsure why Mac was touching him at all but unable to pull away. “So once your heart is back to normal, you gotta have the beer so that your blood is, um, like…warm and also slowed down. So they match. And that’s how you avoid an em…an um…an emblem—”

“An embolism?”

“Yeah!” Mac’s hand squeezed and then dropped from his shoulder. “Um, or else your blood vessels can burst.”

“Okay,” said Dennis slowly. “Um, I don’t think any of that sounds right to me.”

“No, it’s right,” said Mac, squinting at him and nodding. “I saw it on an episode of X Files. The alien burrowed in their skin and stopped their blood from pumping and the dude exploded.”

“I — What?” Dennis shook his head, one hand held out to stop him from continuing. “No, forget it. I just — Can we not make up pseudo-science based on episodes of the X Files you watched when you were stoned?”

“Just ‘cause you’re a vet doesn’t mean you know more better than—”

“—Can we just go get some beer?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s how it works, Dennis,” Mac said in that special annoying condescending tone that made Dennis really want to slap him, and take him at his word. If he sounded _that_ confident, maybe it was true. Mac scanned the surrounding area. “How do you wanna do this?”

“I’m thinking,” said Dennis, curling a smile at him, “that we combine my charm and your persuasive abilities and go work something out with them.”

He nodded at a small group of twenty-somethings huddled under a nearby tree, sipping beer and laughing. Dennis turned back to Mac, and they shared another grin.

Ultimately Mac successfully bullied it out of one of the scrawnier ones in the pack. After they all laughed at Mac and Dennis and walked away, the pair of them followed their mark around for a while until he separated slightly from his group. Mac snatched his wristband from him and Dennis pushed him into the side of the port-o-potties near where they had sequestered him away.

They ducked into the drinks tent — Dennis got his wristband at the door — and up to the counter. Mac did all the talking, since Dennis had already made a scene and failed, a fact that he was _not_ pouting about. He still felt good flipping off the women and laughing, victorious, after they’d been served their beer. Mac grabbed their two full cups, which spilled all over his hands as Dennis tugged him back outside.

“Here,” he said, thrusting one at Dennis. Mac shot him the same tree-felling smile as before as they tapped them together and drank.

Mac fetched them another couple of beers after they were done chugging the first round; Dennis watched him gulp down half of it in one go and fell into him, laughing and wrapping an arm around his neck.

“You’re gonna be _wasted_ if you keep that up,” he said. He lifted his chin up, studying Mac’s face. “You got a drop, here.”

Mac was quiet as Dennis reached up and swiped his thumb against the side of his mouth, drying it of stray beer. Mac wasn’t moving, didn’t even seem to be breathing. Dennis wiped his thumb off on the side of his jeans and ruffled Mac’s hair with the arm around his neck, pulling away entirely.

“All better,” he said.

He felt Mac’s eyes on him when he took a step back and tipped his own cup of beer up, putting back nearly all that was left. When he was done, he upended the last couple of drops into Mac’s cup, still held aloft and shaking slightly. Dennis grinned.

“There you go,” he said.

Mac jolted, blinking at him. He stared down into his beer like he was surprised to be holding it. When he next lifted it to his mouth, he finished it off and stuffed the empty cup inside of Dennis’s in his hand, patting Dennis on the shoulder as he started to slouch away.

“Come on,” said Mac, gesturing for him to follow without stopping, “we should take a break before those stupid broads in the drinks tent get suspicious. Let’s hit some more rides.”

Dennis looked after him for a long moment. “Okay.”

He tossed both their empty beers to the ground and half-jogged to catch up to Mac, until they were side by side again and his heartbeat returned to its normal pace. Dennis nudged his arm with his elbow, and when Mac glanced over at him, they shared a smile.

“I wanna go on _that_ ,” Mac declared, finally dragging his gaze away from Dennis to point into the middle-distance.

Dennis tore his eyes off the side of Mac’s face to squint toward what he was talking about. A big wheel rose up behind a couple of other rides, like a Ferris wheel except each seat was in a cage that spun around too. It took him a few seconds to register what Mac was asking of him; very distracting, suddenly, was the proximity of their hands, knuckles brushing on each step. He was struck by how very easy it would be to reach out and take Mac’s hand — something he would have done hours ago, were he here with one of the sorority girls that he routinely asked out instead of his best friend. Kissed her in the forest earlier, her lips velvet-like against his own when he was tripping on acid and everything was bright and vivid, and then took her hand long before they ever broke in to get beer. Rote. Expected. Could take her behind one of the food stands and kiss her in the semi-dark, press their bodies together, hear him moan out Dennis’s name—

He coughed, blinking out of the partial fantasy and back up at the 360 Ferris Wheel. Dennis raised his eyebrows.

“Come on!” Mac said on a laugh, and he took off running.

Dennis swallowed.

“Hey!” he called, and took off after him.

He took a wrong turn by a fish-shooting game and got slightly distracted by the flashy lights of a Frogger ride, and found Mac near the middle of a short line; a few high school-aged kids grumbled and snapped at him when he elbowed his way to Mac’s side, but Dennis flipped them off and grabbed at Mac’s arm.

“Where have you been?!” Mac said. “I almost got on without you.”

Dennis glanced at the ten or so people milling in front of Mac. He looked back at him and raised his eyebrows.

“Um, sorry,” he said. “I got a little bit turned around. I’m here now, though, I made it.”

The wait ended up being pretty lengthy; it took the pimply late-teens kid operating the machine a long time to stop at each seat, open the door and lift the cage so the people inside could jump down, and swing the next set around, in between actually keeping the ride spinning too. By the time Mac and Dennis got to the front of the line and were up next to climb aboard, the beers they had were wearing off even with all the weed and leftover acid in their systems keeping the combined highs and drunkenness rolling along together. Dennis was just wondering if he’d have time to duck out and use the port-a-potties when the ride stopped again, two giggling women stepped out clutching at each other’s hands and leaning their heads together, and Mac practically shoved them out of the way to leap into their vacated seats.

“Hey, careful!” the ride operator called after him. “You’ll have your turn, there’s plenty of time—”

“He’s just excited,” said Dennis, rolling his eyes as he stepped past the kid, flashing his wristband. “It’s better and easier to let it happen and just — try to stay out of the way of the inevitable destruction.”

The kid called, “But I was just gonna—”

Dennis ignored him. Mac reached out to pull him up beside him, grinning as he wrapped his hand around Dennis’s and tugged him through the big step through the air. They didn’t let go until the cage stopped shaking, right before the kid, frowning, slammed the door shut and locked it tight.

“Grab the bar, please,” he said in monotone.

“Okay, bro. But I can’t be held responsible if I break it off,” Mac warned.

Dennis looked at him. “I — What?”

“If this thing’s whipping me around and I’m too muscular, and I break it off because I’m grabbing onto it so tight,” Mac explained, “then I’m not gonna be paying for the damages!”

“Right,” the kid said through the cage, still sounding bored, as he stepped back behind his control panel. “Hands on the bar, please.”

“Alright. But I told him, I am _not_ responsible if it comes off!” said Mac.

“I know. You did tell him,” Dennis assured him, patting him on the shoulder. “Just hold onto the damn thing so he can start the—”

He still only had one hand on the safety bar when the ride cranked to life and they swung suddenly upwards. With a shout, Dennis grabbed wildly for support and held on as tightly as he could.

They swung up in a big arc. The cage went with it; on the downswing Dennis grabbed out for Mac’s arm and dug his fingers in so tight that Mac cried out. But he didn’t shake him off — when they got right-side up again, catching their breath for a couple of seconds, Dennis dragged his nails away from the imprints he’d made, mumbling an apology. Without looking at him, Mac circled Dennis’s nearest wrist with two fingers and squeezed. Before Dennis had time to even look over at him, his hands were back on the safety bar, and then Dennis’s were too as their cage did another sharp loop on its axis.

The beer in his stomach sloshed as the entire ride did another turn, sending their cage flying again, and then again. After the third time in a row, their cage stopped, dangling in the air (mercifully the right way around) and swung, loosely, back and forth. Dennis’s grip on the safety bar didn’t budge one bit, too terrified for when the ride restarted.

But it didn’t restart. And it didn’t. Tentatively, Dennis cracked open one eye.

Mac was leaning with his face pressed up against the mesh of the cage, peering down toward the ground as best he could. With a shallow groan, Dennis reached out and yanked him back by the collar of his shirt.

“What are you doing, dude?” Dennis asked. “When this thing goes around again, your whole face is gonna get mashed up.”

“No, we aren’t…We’re not moving, Dennis.”

Dennis cracked open his other eye. “What?”

“I don’t think we’re moving.”

Mac pointed at the floor. Arms shaking, Dennis carefully leaned up against the window too, sure that the ride was going to start spinning again as soon as he lifted his back off the wall. But it didn’t, and it didn’t. Dennis struggled to get a good enough angle to see the entrance down below.

“Maybe they’re just letting more people off?” Dennis suggested.

“No one’s down there, bro,” said Mac. “I can see it from here.”

He wasn’t looking down through the front slats, but instead had fixated on what seemed to be a crack in the metal floor. Dennis shifted closer, hoping to see too.

Mac’s arm pressed, solid and warm, into Dennis’s and for the first time, the nausea in his stomach settled. He moved closer, settling more of himself against the side of Mac’s body as subtly as he could. Not thinking about it. Just trying to feel normal again.

After a while Mac sighed, nudging Dennis off of him, and he retreated back to his own seat. There wasn’t much room in the cage, though, and they were still barely parted. Dennis watched him lean his head back against the thin cushion behind him.

“So what?” Dennis asked at last. “Is someone fixing it?”

“Relax, bro,” Mac said, looking over at him. “We don’t even know if something’s wrong.”

“Of course something’s wrong!” he said, volume climbing. “You don’t just stop people in cages at the top of a—”

“It’s a fucking circus ride, Dennis, Jesus! Calm down.” As though he couldn’t help himself, or like it would do any good, Mac leaned forward again to see out, squinting into the night. “Fuck, it’s dark out there.”

“Can you see anything?”

Mac shook his head. “No,” he said, but he didn’t stop trying.

They went quiet. Dennis kept his hands on the safety bar, still unsure whether something was wrong or if they were just in some kind of normal lull, but positive either way that the minute he relaxed his grip was the minute that the whole thing restarted. Little by little, his grasp loosened; holding onto things was so boring. Letting go was difficult, too.

Mac touched his knuckles.

“You can relax, Dennis,” he said, too quiet in a space like this. “Your hands are gonna cramp up and you won’t be able to drive us home.”

Dennis looked at him, the wide eyes trained on him, and then back at his own hands. On a deep breath, he released the bar.

The ride didn’t move, at all. He stayed tense for a moment, ready to latch back onto his only anchor, but then the seconds kept passing. After a minute he looked up, pleased and smiling, sure that Mac was going to be watching and proud of him.

Mac wasn’t. He had gone back to checking for some kind of maintenance guy, or rescue guy, or whatever it was that he was waiting for; Dennis let out a sigh and glanced away.

There was very little to look at in the cage, though. The more he tried to think about nothing, the more aware he became of his ever-present nausea borne from swinging in the air, and the traces of LSD still in his blood making him feel both hyper-aware of everything and out of it at the same time, and the drinks in his stomach mixing all of that together. Panic started to rise up in him, sharply pointed and fast. He remembered to try and think about nothing instead, and the cycle restarted.

Mac coughed next to him, jostling around. Dennis’s gaze jumped up to him like a magnet. He breathed out.

Thinking about nothing was easier, looking at Mac. Thinking about Mac was easier. Dennis watched him, how he fidgeted in place, how he bit his lip, how he kept his stare fixed through the slats of the cage they were in, studying the far-away ground with a flush on his cheeks as though he deliberately wasn’t looking Dennis in the eye. When it became unbearable, Dennis gave a low, choked sound — and finally Mac glanced up and met his gaze.

Mac’s expression was open.

“What?” he asked.

Face tipped down, voice rough and low, Dennis said to him: “We’re trapped in here.”

Mac swallowed. He said, “Yeah. Looks like it.”

Dennis frowned. Mac was still guarded — but when he looked out into the night now, he kept shooting nervous little peeks up at Dennis’s face, like he couldn’t keep the urge smothered anymore. Dennis let a low, aggrieved sound out on a breath.

“Mac,” he said jaggedly, and when Mac turned back toward him his cheeks were dark red and his eyes were on Dennis’s mouth. Quieter, he said, “Mac.”

For a nearly untenable amount of time, they just looked at each other. Dennis had no idea what his face was doing — he was too busy feeling the heat claw its way up his throat, feeling like he was suffocating, feeling like he would never be able to rub this moment off his skin.

But nobody moved. And nobody moved. After a few seconds, Dennis looked away, swallowing hard and staring down at the ground like Mac had been before. He squinted around his closing throat, trying his best to seem disinterested and focused on something else. He knew Mac. He could make him doubt the clear implication and what they both knew, if Dennis kept ignoring it hard enough.

When the color started to recede from his cheeks, and his chest didn’t feel as restricted, the frustration crept back in, tight and hot as anger when it wound its way through his blood. Dennis ground out a frustrated sound in the back of his throat; he shook his head, half-disgusted, the rest of him filled with something else that he couldn’t name. Disappointment, maybe, except he would never have expected anything else. Would have known how stupid and pointless it would be, if he’d dared to think about it at all.

Dennis glanced back up, something sharper to say on the tip of his tongue, but then he caught the look on Mac’s face — his eyes were big and terrified and wide, his lips visibly trembling even in the dark, and the vitriolic storm died before it ever made it out of him. Dennis’s mouth opened uselessly. He felt suddenly drained.

Mac licked his lips; in the shared space between them, locked together with nobody else around to hear, he probably didn’t need to whisper. He was barely audible anyway when he said, “Hey, Dennis?”

Dennis turned away from him, frowning instead through the slats in the cage. He wasn’t going to look over. He was not going to look over at him. He wasn’t going to hope.

But then he felt, more than saw, Mac reach out beside him. There were fingers on his chin. Tentative, heat skittering down his arms and flooding the rest of his nervous system, Dennis glanced back over at him. They looked at each other for half a second before Mac tipped forward and hastily, clumsily, desperately pushed their lips together.

Messy. Off-center. Dennis closed his eyes, somehow not expecting it even though he’d been passing all of the signs along the side of the road. A quiet noise slipped out of him, almost distressed-sounding. Dennis tipped his chin down and captured Mac’s mouth again, this time aligning them together just right.

A soft, surprised exhale; and then Mac’s fingers were stroking along his cheek, skimming back across his jaw. Dennis got lost in Mac’s mouth — Mac’s hot, desperate mouth, that was pressing needy against Dennis’s without letting him part for any real breath.

Mac’s hand dropped from his cheek to clutch at his t-shirt collar instead, twisting it up tight like he thought Dennis would go somewhere, as though he had anywhere to flee. Dennis tipped his head and caught Mac in another soft kiss, and his palm came to rest against the side of his face. His thumb tapped, stroked gently against his cheek.

Mac leaned into him more for half a second before he tipped his forehead against Dennis’s, breaking their mouths apart. When Dennis’s eyes flickered open to catch a glimpse of his face, he had his own scrunched tightly shut while he pulled in sharp, shuddery breaths. Dennis closed his eyes again and just focused on how Mac’s skin felt on his, and listened to him breathe. He was warm. He was so warm.

When Mac’s hand untwisted from his shirt and dropped back to his lap, Dennis pulled his own back too. Mac leaned away, back to his side of the ride. Dennis couldn’t stop watching him, the slope of his cheek, the pink on the bridge of his nose. When he finally glanced back up and met Dennis’s stare, their breaths only held for a second before Dennis cracked a smile. Mac huffed a laugh too, rolling his eyes.

The ride chose that moment to judder back to life. Dennis jumped, striking out to grab at Mac’s sleeve for balance. They looked at each other, and then Mac started to laugh.

“Shut up,” Dennis grumbled, pulling his arm back.

But Mac kept laughing. He elbowed at Dennis until they got flipped around again and they both had to grab at the bar to keep steady, until the cage jolted down to let another passenger out and the room swayed and settled.

“Ow, fuck!” Mac hissed, pulling his arm away when it slammed against the side of the cage. He cursed more, rubbing at his elbow. “That hurt, dude.”

Dennis slanted him a glance.

“Want me to kiss it and make it better?” he said wryly.

Mac shoved him and Dennis fell away from him, laughing harder.

“Shut up,” said Mac. His cheeks were still red, and Dennis so badly wanted to yank him in by his sweatshirt and bury his face in his neck. Jesus, fuck. “Shut _up_ , okay, it didn’t — You asked me to. It didn’t — mean anything. I mean, it’s not like it never…Shut up.”

Dennis snickered at him some more, until Mac elbowed him again and they started slapping at each other. Then the ride jerked again and Dennis twisted his hand in Mac’s jacket with a sharp inhale, and Mac stroked at his wrist, murmuring gently to him until his heart stopped jumping. Mac guided Dennis’s hand back until he could grab at the safety bar again. Dennis kept an unbreakable grip wrapped around it until they were finally wheeled back to the ground, and they clamored out together, mercifully back on safe, flat grass.

It was pointless to keep teasing Mac, even though his cheeks were bright red and it would have been the easiest thing in the world to poke and needle at his buttons until he snapped or smacked him or wrenched him in for another kiss. Dennis was still pink too, mouth tingling where Mac had put his own. And he had been right, anyway: It’s not like it was their first kiss.

Dennis’s stomach caved like he was hungry, eyes flicking over Mac’s face as he patted down his pockets to make sure nothing had fallen out and then started screaming at the ride operator who sniped at him to get out of the way so he could keep the wheel spinning. Dennis cleared his throat and looked away.

“Fuck,” he said as they started walking past the line. He was still jumpy, and he shook out his arms, trying to stop them from quivering. “Shit, I think I need another drink.”

“Oh, I think the drinks tent is closing soon!” Mac was already a couple steps ahead of him, breaking into a half-jog. He turned around to wave frantically at Dennis. “Come on, dude, if we book it we can still make it in time for one more beer!”

They got there in time for a beer, although they were closing up and Mac had to get into an ill-advised argument with the woman passing out IPAs because they were still using a stolen wristband and she kept making comments about how they didn’t look 21. They had to drink them outside the tent, too, but Mac did successfully score them both a beer and Dennis grinned at him as they set out to wind their way around the games tents.

“Thanks, man,” he said, tapping his cup with Mac’s and taking a healthy sip. “Oh, shit, that’s good. That’s way better than the last one, dude! What is this?”

“It’s hard cider, not beer,” said Mac. “That’s all she had left. It’s apple flavored.”

“It’s really good,” said Dennis, downing more.

Mac grimaced. “It’s a pussy drink, Dennis.”

Though that didn’t stop him gulping it down when Dennis pointed out that he’d happily drink it for him and reached for it. Mac shoved him away. They were laughing and still pushing at each other while they drained their cups, before Mac grabbed his and stacked them together to toss at a garbage can. He missed.

“I wanna go on the pirate ship,” Mac declared.

Dennis rolled his eyes. “You’re gonna get sick on that, bro.”

“What? No I won’t!” he said stubbornly.

“You _absolutely_ will. You just drank a shit ton, dude—”

“I have a stomach made of _steel_ , Dennis,” he stressed. “Just watch!”

Dennis rolled his eyes but allowed Mac to drag him over to the stupid ride that would flip them around in circles. It would show him right when he vomited all over the floor.

Mac ended up holding it together for the spinning ride, and the mini roller coaster, and one that whipped them around a track and sent Dennis crushing Mac into the side of the seat with the G-force. Mac’s elbow was digging uncomfortably into Dennis’s ribs and his laughter was loud and bright, singing beside his ear. Dennis’s stomach kept flipping around, and he was the one regretting that last drink.

“Come on, _one_ last ride,” said Mac when they were back on the well-trodden grass. He tugged on Dennis’s elbow plaintively. “We drove all the way here, bro, and I _never_ get to go to the fair…Come on Dennis, _please_ …then we can go home, I promise…Just one more…”

“Jesus, fine!” Dennis snapped.

He pulled his arm sharply away, but Mac’s big eyes didn’t abate as he sank into a frown. Dennis rolled his eyes, working to calm his blood pressure. He reached out and ruffled Mac’s hair, mostly because Mac shouted out and starting messing with it to get it back into place.

“Okay, fine. Let’s go. _One_ more,” Dennis warned, as Mac ran his fingers through his hair worriedly and snapped, “What the fuck, Dennis? You’re such an asshole—”

“Stop bitching,” Dennis said on a laugh, elbowing him. “Where do you wanna go, man? It’s your last ride. You pick.”

They ended up on the tilt-a-whirl, presumably because Mac had some sort of complex and long-standing grudge against Dennis that he just now felt the need to cash in on.

“It’s really slow Dennis, come on,” he promised from the front of the line, blocking the gate so nobody else could go through. Dennis hung back, biting his lip. He glanced down at the hand Mac had extended toward him, fingers curling impatiently. “Dennis, I’ll go slow. Come _on_.”

Sighing, Dennis relented. He slapped Mac’s hand out of the way as he passed through ahead him, jogging up to the car he wanted and settling into the seat. Mac squeezed in next to him. Dennis flushed when their thighs pressed together, his stomach flipping in anticipation of the ride. He was already sure that this was one huge, horrible mistake — but too late to back out now.

Mac spun the disk in the middle far too fast, and they went flying right out of the gate. He ignored Dennis shouting at him to stop, and clawing at him, and he even managed to keep them going at top speed when Dennis tried to grab the wheel and yank them to a halt. Eventually he just gave up and leaned back in his seat to try and fight the wave of sickness rising in him. Beside him, Mac was laughing at top volume, bright and loud and out of control as he threw them in a seemingly endless, uncontrollable tailspin through the boundless night.

Dennis made it through what he considered an impressive three-quarters of the ride before he heaved himself up over the side and threw up. Mac didn’t stop spinning, and the shrieks of nearby passengers followed them in a whirl as they spun away, somehow avoiding all of the sick.

“Oh, come on. Look what you did,” Mac complained a minute later, as the ride operator slowed them down far too early — or in Dennis’s opinion, about five minutes too late. They jumped off together. “Dennis, why’d you have to do that?”

“Me?” Dennis gasped, stumbling away from his seat. “You said you’d go slow!”

“Oh, please.” Mac rolled his eyes. “I never said that, Dennis. You said you’d be fine.”

He was too nauseous to argue. He staggered away from Mac, blind with needing to get away from his own mess and sit down, to avoid any consequences or getting told off by the kid operating the ride. He didn’t wait to see where Mac was, or if he was following, but when he eventually found a bench on the outskirts of the games tents, Mac appeared in front of him. He patted at Dennis’s shoulders, looking all around.

“I’ll go find you something to settle your stomach,” said Mac. “Some ginger ale or something.”

Dennis clutched at his sleeve. It slipped out of his fingers when Mac left him, and his hands fell limply into his own lap. Fuck, he felt awful. Dennis buried his face in his hands and waited for the world to stop spinning.

Fingers brushed through his hair. Dennis looked up.

“Here you go,” Mac said. His cheeks were tinged, like he’d been running. He loosened the cap on the bottle in his hands and thrust it at him, which Dennis accepted gratefully.

He chugged back almost half the ginger ale before pausing, gasping for air and wiping at his mouth. Mac paced nearby, glancing around at the tents and occasionally back at Dennis; he could see him out of the corner of his eye, even though he was just panting and looking down at his hands in his lap.

Mac came back to him, wringing his hands.

“I had to pay for that with change, you know,” he said.

Dennis glanced up. “What?”

Mac’s mouth twisted down.

“I only had, like, two bucks in my wallet. And fair prices are always hiked up as fuck because they don’t let in outside—”

Dennis rolled his eyes.

“Sorry for wasting, like, less than four dollars of your own money for once. I only drove us here and have bought you dinner every single time that you come up—”

“You bitch!” Mac pointed at him, furious. “You have money! I have quarters!”

“But you had the quarters, right?” Dennis asked mildly.

Mac rolled his eyes, falling back a step dramatically. He scowled and crossed his arms. Dennis looked at him for a second, then snorted and shook his head, focusing back on his lap when it became clear Mac was done arguing. He twisted his hands together.

Mac kicked at one of his ankles. With a sigh, Dennis glanced up again. He was expecting a fight — but Mac was half-smiling at him, lazy, and when he reached out to run his hand through Dennis’s hair again, Dennis pushed his arm away with an exhausted laugh.

“You know, you’re a real fuckin’ expensive date, huh?” said Mac.

Dennis paused, blinking up at him. The neon lights of the fair haloed him so his edges blurred out, and Dennis felt a bit like that too, like his insides had all been smudged together. A mold of all the basic parts of him, scrubbed into someone new. Someone who kissed his best friend when they were stuck on an amusement park ride and didn’t feel bad about it, someone who might want to kiss him again.

Mac didn’t mean it that way, he knew — he was just joking, which was why he was still smiling. But Dennis felt off-kilter and a little bit unreal, and he laughed quietly, breaking into a smirk.

“I told you not to fall in love with me,” Dennis said wryly.

He looked away. He could feel Mac’s eyes on him, but he couldn’t tell if they were playful or serious and didn’t want to glance up and check. His skin felt itchy-hot, and he focused on a point on the grass, trying not to feel it so viscerally where Mac’s stare was boring into the side of his face.

After a minute, Mac turned away to spit in the grass. Dennis chanced a glance up at his face and found Mac squinting out into the distance, rubbing at his nose.

“Do you wanna go get something to eat?” Mac asked after a while, jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of the parking lot. Dennis frowned up at him. His stomach, at last, was beginning to feel normal again. “I’m starving, dude. We haven’t really eaten all day, and we’ve been on our feet, so I just—”

“Yeah, let’s go. Come on,” said Dennis. He heaved himself up off the bench and clapped Mac on the back as he passed. “I’ll drive us somewhere. I know a good place nearby.”

There was a diner a few blocks from his frat house that was open twenty-four hours, and at this time of night was generally populated almost exclusively by young twenty-somethings who’d stumbled by on their walk home from a party. Mac and Dennis managed to grab a booth by the window, but their waitress took a long time to come over.

“So what do you wanna do tomorrow before your bus takes off?” Dennis asked once they had given away their orders for late-night waffles and a chicken-vegetable sandwich.

He folded his arms on the table and leaned in, kicking his feet out at Mac’s under the table. He grinned.

“Oh, I have no idea,” said Mac.

The waitress came back and set a milkshake in front of him, along with an order of mozzarella sticks. Mac stole Dennis’s water straw and took a big drink of chocolate.

“There’s probably an early movie playing, if you wanna go,” Dennis suggested. “We could get high and go see something with a ton of action.”

Mac’s nose scrunched up in that way that made his whole mouth hang open. Dennis bit down on the rim of his water glass when he took a sip.

“I don’t wanna go sit in a theatre before I have to sit on a bus all day,” said Mac. Almost absentmindedly, he reached out and grabbed at the end of Dennis’s sweatshirt sleeve. It was an old jacket, frayed with some seams coming undone, and he plucked at a hole near Dennis’s thumb, jamming his finger through it and making it even wider. “Maybe we could go do something outside? There are some volleyball courts on the other side of the quad from you, right?”

Dennis rolled his eyes.

“Volleyball? Really?” he asked. Mac’s fingers tickled his wrist where he kept playing with his sweatshirt. “Mac, you don’t know how to play volleyball.”

“So what? It would be fun!”

“Ah, I don’t know.” Dennis frowned at the table. He broke off the ends of a mozzarella stick, crumbs falling all over the table, and dunked it into the side bowl of marinara. “I hate those guys, dude. The ones who are always hanging around by the courts and waiting to take a turn playing that shit or hacky sack or some other bullshit game that will never get them laid. I don’t wanna hang out with them.”

“Well, we don’t have to hang out with _them_ , Dennis. You can just hang out with me.”

Dennis glanced up at him, biting his lip. Mac grinned at him and pulled his milkshake closer, shifting all his focus onto it as he wrapped his lips around the straw and pulled hard. Even though they hadn’t been touching, Dennis missed his hands on his sweatshirt sleeve; he tugged them down over his palms and curled his fingers around it, and pressed his lips together.

The woman came back with their dinners after twenty more minutes; Mac bitched about the wait and hissed that he was going to cut her tip in half, of course.

“Bro, I’m the one who’s gonna be paying for this dinner anyway,” Dennis pointed out. “So it’s not really up to you.”

Mac glanced at him through shoveling mouthfuls of waffle into his face, eyes wide.

“It’s the principle of the thing, Dennis!” he said stubbornly, washing his puffy cheeks down with more milkshake. “Women are always so slow and — and rude to two dude customers, ‘cause they only give a shit about other women, right? So _she’s_ actually being sexist to _us_! So really, I don’t…I don’t think you should pay her at all.”

“Uh-huh.”

Dennis rolled his eyes. He tugged Mac’s milkshake across the table, out of his reach when he tried to swipe it back, and took some for himself. Then he pushed it back into Mac’s grabbing hands and settled in to dig into his sandwich.

Dennis poked fun at him while they ate — for shoveling his waffle into his mouth like he’d never eaten before, and for dousing it in too much syrup, and for looking like a dumbass in that t-shirt. He loosely tangled their ankles together beneath the table, and when Mac swatted at his arm in reproach, he trailed a thumb down Dennis’s forearm before snagging another mozzarella stick and pulling away.

Mac propped his chin on his hand and gazed around the diner while Dennis scribbled out the check, but all the while Dennis couldn’t stop looking at him. In another life…If they were different people—

Dennis slipped his credit card back into his wallet and they pushed back out into the chilly night. Mac sighed, rubbing his hands together and blowing heat on them.

“Which way did you park the car?” he asked. Dennis pointed.

It was a bit of the walk to the lot; Dennis drew his sweatshirt tighter around himself and thought about asking Mac for his jacket, too. Mac never got cold, even on the nights that dropped below zero and Dennis could feel the breeze wafting in through the cracks in his rickety frat house window, locked tight or not, or even worse when he stayed over at Mac’s house. He always felt it then, even with all the doors and windows shut, even curled up beneath Mac’s big comforter. The only thing that really ever made him warm was when Mac got really, really tired, or very, very drunk or stoned, so he didn’t object that much when Dennis crossed the invisible line over to his side of the bed and pressed his icy feet up against Mac’s calves. Sometimes Mac would wrap an arm around him, maybe even let Dennis press his nose into his neck, and on those nights he could sleep.

Somewhere else, if they were different people, somebody pays for dinner and the fair, and the other gives the first one his jacket. They would hold hands on the way to the car, maybe — or kiss before he got dropped off at his front door. Dennis wondered, flicking a glance to the side — if most of that didn’t happen, could he still call it a date?

Mac’s elbow knocked into his. Dennis’s heartbeat was loud but steady in his ears when their eyes met. The tips of Mac’s ears were red with cold.

“What are you thinking about, man?” said Mac.

Dennis let his mouth curl, softly.

“Your hair looks good like that,” he said, changing his mind halfway through calling him ugly. “With the wind through it.”

He wanted to reach out and push his fingers into it, muss it up even more. There was a moment when he could have, with Mac gaping at him, momentarily paused in his tracks; but then he pushed on, his cheeks flushing red, and Dennis let the impulse pass. He tucked a grin into the collar of his sweatshirt the rest of the walk back to the car.

The frat house was quiet and dark by the time they got back, though that didn’t stop either of them from being loud. Dennis rummaged through the kitchen to get them both glasses of water while Mac crashed up to his bedroom, where Dennis found him splayed out on the couch flipping through the TV at too high a volume. Rolling his eyes, Dennis nudged him to the side, stole the remote, and dialed it down despite Mac’s complaining. He wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and sat down next to Mac, scooting close so their knees touched. Mac pulled the afghan off the back of the couch and tucked it around the both of them while Dennis found a movie on one of the higher channels, some gladiator flick with too much fake blood.

Mac complained about the sword fighting the entire time, insisting that that wasn’t the way to best somebody in battle and trying to get Dennis to help him demonstrate the most effective fighting strategy with an empty paper towel roll and a tube of giftwrap, until Dennis yanked him back down onto the couch and told him to shut up. In truth, Mac wasn’t being distracting so much as just plain annoying. Dennis had no idea what was going on in the movie either, lost in their thick British accents and the gore and Mac’s thigh pressing up against his own, Mac’s laughter in his ear. Dennis turned a little to look at him and smiled.

By the end of the movie, he was leaning into Mac much more; he wasn’t sleepy, exactly, so much as he was bone-deep tired, muscles not-quite-sore from a day of running around in the woods and the grass and getting jostled around on shitty park rides. Mac dragged his fingers through Dennis’s hair, rubbing at the side of his head as the credits began to roll.

“Hey, baby,” said Mac, and his voice was hushed, low and reverent. His fingers pulled through Dennis’s hair again, and it felt good. Dennis buried himself closer to Mac’s chest. “Let’s go to bed, huh?”

Dennis clutched loosely at Mac’s t-shirt. His nose dragged up the column of his throat when he lifted his head.

“I’m not tired,” he insisted.

Mac made a noise, thick and disbelieving.

“You’re falling asleep on top of me.”

“No I’m not,” said Dennis, eyes drifting shut again. “I can just see the TV better from here.”

“It’s really late, Den. Let’s at least just lay down.”

Dennis made a low, obstinate noise, but Mac didn’t listen to him. He pried Dennis’s claws out of his t-shirt and clutched loosely at his hand, not really holding it so much as just using it to drag Dennis across the room before pushing him onto his bed. Dennis sat down as bid, no fight left in him. He watched, slightly detached, as Mac stripped out of his jeans and jacket, used the bathroom, and climbed over him to lay down. He always slept in Dennis’s bed when he stayed over, mostly because there was nowhere else to sleep except the couch, which was far too small, but also a little bit because they’d been sharing beds during sleepovers for years.

Once Mac burrowed into his sheets, Dennis finally turned around and saw how comfortable he looked there, and a thick wave of jealousy moved through him as he wished he was already done with his nightly routine so he could be like that, too. He heaved himself back up to his feet and half-stumbled to the bathroom.

He made fast, lazy work of washing his face and brushing his teeth. When he was done, he tugged off his clothes, feeling the grubbiness of the fair sticking to his t-shirt; even without a shower, he felt better after changing into a warm sweater. Mac shifted over for him when he got in bed too, pulling back the covers and then covering him up once he was settled. Dennis smiled, pulling himself closer to him. He closed his eyes.

For a long time, Dennis tried to sleep. The wind was picking up outside, but the sound of it was oddly soothing as it rushed by. He was warm and exhausted, buried underneath two blankets, and he could feel Mac’s body heat from here.

Dennis turned over and tried to fall asleep from that position instead. He flipped onto his stomach. He flipped onto his back.

Rolling back to his side, Dennis nudged himself closer to Mac. Their faces were very close when Dennis cupped his upper arm, thumb running back and forth just above his tattoo.

“Hey, Mac. Are you awake?” Dennis jostled him slightly. “Mac? Are you sleeping?”

Without opening his eyes, Mac groaned.

“No, I’m not,” he said.

“Oh.” Dennis pulled his hand back. Mac finally opened his eyes and blinked at him, eyes wide and shiny in the dark. “I can’t sleep.”

“I know you can’t sleep,” Mac said tiredly, eyes drifting shut again. He reached out and wound his arm around Dennis’s waist, urging him closer. A thrill shot through him, which he ignored; still, he shuffled further toward Mac’s side of the mattress, until his knees knocked Mac’s thighs where his legs were slightly curled. “It’s the LSD, bro, that’s gonna keep you up for hours.”

“But I’m tired.”

Mac made nothing more than a small huffing noise, and his arm tightened around Dennis’s back. Sighing, Dennis closed his eyes again, hoping that if he just got comfortable enough then he could prove Mac wrong. Mac was always wrong about shit, it shouldn’t be too hard. He let himself curl his hands loosely into the front of Mac’s t-shirt and tried again to go to sleep.

For a while, he settled into that in-between place where he couldn’t make it all the way under but nothing in the world would get him to open his eyes or move. Eventually, though, that passed also. He gradually returned closer and closer to consciousness — and as he did, he became suddenly aware that Mac was still awake, too. His hand on Dennis’s back shifted, rubbing between his shoulder blades, then sliding back down toward his waist. Dennis shivered — and like he took that as a cue, Mac pulled him in the last of the distance between them until they were pressed all the way together. Dennis let out a sigh, reaching to wrap his arms around his neck.

Mac’s errant hand shifted, spreading out over Dennis’s waist. It was a lot, almost too much; Dennis hadn’t changed into anything when he pulled off his jeans earlier, so there was nothing in Mac’s way except for the boxers he sometimes slept in. He swallowed, then gasped softly when Mac pushed up underneath his sweater, scratching at the small of his back, touching at bare skin. Dennis finally opened his eyes.

Mac was already looking back at him, eyes searching his face in the dark. He was glad that at least Mac probably couldn’t see the blush that rocketed into his cheeks as soon as he realized he was being stared at, but even if he did, he didn’t seem to care. Holding his breath, Dennis finally uncurled his fists and let his hands skim down Mac’s back too; Mac gave a little breathy sound, his face nudging closer, and Dennis smiled and let his nails curl in.

He ended up tucking one of his arms between his head and the pillow so that Mac wouldn’t have to lay on it, and as soon as he had room, Mac ducked down and pressed his forehead against Dennis’s collarbone. Dennis curled his hips closer, pushing his hand up Mac’s shirt as well and tracing a finger so lightly over his ribs that against him, Mac shuddered.

Dennis’s skin was beginning to heat up. Mac just kept circling one particular spot beside his spine, occasionally reaching to scratch down Dennis’s chest instead. Dennis listened to his own breathing labor in the otherwise silent room, and the blush wouldn’t leave him.

“Why does—” He swallowed, felt Mac’s hot gaze on his face. “—that…That feels good.”

Mac shifted closer. His fingers tickled up the front of Dennis’s sweater. When he breathed, Dennis could feel it on his mouth.

“That’s the acid, too.”

And it must have been. Dennis couldn’t remember someone else’s hands on him being like this — he couldn’t remember someone else’s hands on him _like this_ , just touching and feeling without trying to get in his pants. Not since maybe high school, back when he’d been dating Maureen, and even then it had never felt at all like this.

He pulled Mac in with an arm around his back and felt his forehead hit Dennis’s shoulder, leaning to nose at his neck. Dennis breathed in, shaky. Looking down was difficult, and not just because Mac’s head was in the way; instead he watched his own hand trace the delicate line of Mac’s hip for a long, long time.

He was afraid to break the silence, that voicing any of this would make Mac pull away from him. But Mac’s fingers crept across the other side of his neck, cradling him gently, and Dennis had to ask:

“Can you take your shirt off for me, baby?” he breathed.

Mac leaned up to look at him. Dennis bit his lip. He was holding his breath but he thought that Mac could probably hear how fast his pulse was rabbiting anyway, if he couldn’t feel it where his palm lay still against Dennis’s neck.

Even though he couldn’t see it, he knew Mac’s face was burning red when he pulled back, nodding clumsily, and divested himself of the shirt. Dennis pulled him in close as soon as he laid back down, the fronts of their thighs pressed together, and he leaned back to watch his hand trail over Mac’s chest, tracing random lines and stray freckles in a nonsense pattern.

He didn’t know what he was thinking. He wasn’t thinking about anything.

Mac seemed to be breathing harder than necessary, chest practically heaving as Dennis spread his palm out over it and dragged it up to cup his shoulder, his thumb running over the same freckle again and again. It was a pretty one, darker than the others around it, and Dennis couldn’t stop looking at. He fought the urge to put his mouth on it instead. Mac slipped down to touch Dennis’s thigh, bare and so vulnerable that he shivered, gaze flicking up to Mac’s. But Mac wasn’t looking at him; he watched his own hand skim down to the sensitive back of Dennis’s knee, and only when Dennis curled his fingers through Mac’s hair did he look up.

Mac breathed it out quietly, “ _Dennis_ ,” almost imperceptible over the slide of his hand up Dennis’s arm as he pushed their legs together under the sheets. Dennis hooked his heel into the back of Mac’s ankle, palming his chest and waist again. Mac bit his lip, eyes drifting closed for a moment under some feeling or another — Dennis laughed. He ducked his face closer, nosing in the space around Mac’s mouth without touching him. Mac swallowed, and all of a sudden he’d gone deathly still.

Dennis counted three missed breaths that he should have taken. Mac still didn’t move.

“Did you have fun today?” Dennis asked, and he felt Mac’s hand tighten on his thigh.

When Mac didn’t answer, Dennis leaned away from him. He studied his frozen, muddled expression for a few seconds and then reached to stroke at his cheek. Mac reanimated, nudging into his touch.

“Lots of fun,” said Mac. His hand was sliding wildly again, up the side of Dennis’s leg and pressing up underneath his sweater, skimming his neck and the vulnerable underside of his wrist, pressing down against Dennis’s pulse point. “I liked when you threw up on all those dumbass bitches on the tilt-a-whirl.”

Dennis laughed.

They laid awake for over an hour, not doing anything else. They talked, but only a little. Mostly they lay in silence and watched their own fingers touching and exploring one another. Dennis tried to keep his eyes off Mac’s face as best he could, but sometimes it was difficult — there was a spot on Dennis’s neck where, every time Mac ran his fingers over it with some pressure, Dennis could feel his face spasm. Whatever he must have looked like, Mac’s eyes always got wide and his mouth fell open, lips wet and tempting, and it was hard _not_ to look at him then.

Mac’s hands felt good on him. It wasn’t quite electricity sparking everywhere they touched, but something close — like he could feel every single nerve on his hands and skin, and the good kind of endorphins sunk down through every pore when Mac’s fingers danced across them. And touching Mac was like dipping his fingers into the way honey tasted, or how lavender smelled; heady and natural and good, like sinking into the earth, or the sun on his skin. He’d never experienced anything like it.

Mac’s face had tipped down to watch his hand on the side of Dennis’s thigh, spread out over his underwear, but when Dennis threaded his fingers through his hair and pulled him up, Mac’s neck arched back and he looked at him with his mouth open.

“Is it like this when you do it with Charlie?” Dennis asked. He didn’t realize how rough his voice sounded until just now. Must have been from all the talking they’d done today.

Mac’s hand tightened on his waist, nails digging into his skin. He shook his head.

“No,” he said. When he dipped closer, the tips of their noses grazed together again. “No, I don’t do this kinda thing with Charlie.”

Charlie had called Dennis two months ago, tripping balls somewhere lying on his back. Mac had been there; they’d needed someone clearer-headed to direct them both back home. Charlie’s mom would have flipped out if he came home that messed up, so Dennis had guided them both back to Mac’s house instead. It had been nearly midnight by the time they’d actually made it and let him hang up, sprawled and giggling together on Mac’s bed.

“What kinda thing?” Dennis asked.

Mac nudged closer. They were sharing the same pillow now; Dennis inhaled and settled his hand back on Mac’s cheek. He bit his lip, eyes casting down. Dennis studied the soft curve of his cheek, how it moved when he swallowed and breathed out.

“Dennis?”

Dennis closed his eyes and pulled Mac in with the hand on the side of his face, and kissed him.

Mac curled closer to him at once, their already-tangled legs sliding further together as he pulled himself in with both hands in the front of Dennis’s sweater. Dennis slid his fingers back, curling them around Mac’s ear and then further into his hair — the softest sigh he’d ever heard slipped from Mac’s mouth when Dennis tightened his grip on him and tipped his head to the side, pressing another kiss to Mac’s lower lip.

Mac yanked himself up half an inch and kissed Dennis more fully, his mouth opening underneath Dennis’s. Mac licked into his mouth with a quiet sound. Dennis pulled himself in until they were chest to chest, forcing Mac to stop clutching his sweater; he curled one hand around Dennis’s neck instead, the other scratching at his bare hip. Dennis slipped his arm around Mac’s waist, rubbing his fingers into the small of his back in soothing little circles. Mac nipped softly at him, cradling his jaw, sliding his tongue back over his lip and into his mouth.

It had been a few years. Dennis had forgotten how sweetly Mac kissed — or at least how sweetly he _could_ kiss, when he wanted. Dennis smirked a little against his mouth until Mac kissed the corner of his lips, smiling a little and tugging at his hair.

“The fuck are you laughing at, bitch?” he murmured.

Dennis dragged his lips across Mac’s cheek. His stubble felt different than normal, more sharply real against Dennis’s face than he remembered. Maybe it really had just been awhile.

“You.”

He captured Mac’s chin between two fingers and Mac was laughing quietly when Dennis pulled him back down to his mouth.

Touching him was even harder to stop now. Mac’s tongue moved against his and pulling away wasn’t even a concept on his radar. Dennis thumbed at his jaw, letting himself be guided through long, slow kisses while they kept touching everywhere they could reach.

Mac grabbed at his thigh again, fingers digging into the sensitive back of it and hefting him closer with a little grunt. Dennis’s knee bent as he curled where Mac wanted him to, and he was pressing up between Mac’s legs all of a sudden. Mac was already half-hard. When Dennis moved against him, his mouth fell open and he started panting. Their gazes both flicked up at once; Dennis ran his fingers in the dip between two of his ribs while they looked at each other, faces simultaneously open and difficult to parse in the dark of the room. Mac’s stare dropped back to Dennis’s mouth after a second, and with a low groan he pulled Dennis back into him.

This time when he kissed him it was wetter, and harder. The hand on Dennis’s thigh crept further, grasping high enough at his leg that he was partially grabbing at his ass too. Dennis rolled over onto his back, pulling Mac with him by the hair. Mac didn’t collapse all the way on top of him but he shifted onto Dennis’s half of the bed more completely so that he could lean over him still.

Dennis spread his hands across Mac’s back while they kissed. Mostly he just petted at him, mindless and content and liking how his muscles felt beneath his hands, but every now and again Mac would bite down on his lip or push his tongue against Dennis’s just right and he would scratch at him, an impulse reaction. He never did it hard enough to leave a mark or draw blood but Mac would pant softly into his mouth every time, and Dennis smiled. He catalogued it away — not sure if he’d ever use the knowledge again, but with a shot of pleasure down his spine that he had it, nonetheless.

Mac rolled back onto his side, pulling Dennis with him with a hand on his waist. Dennis curled around him, separating their mouths as little as possible, pressing his thigh back between Mac’s legs when they settled. He tangled his fingers in Mac’s hair and held him still while he tipped his head to the side to kiss him again from a new angle.

The heady, in-the-sun lavender feeling never faded, dripping through him steady and sweet every time he felt Mac’s mouth on his. He tipped his head back, ghosting out a sigh when Mac started to kiss down his neck.

“Fuck,” he breathed, and felt Mac smile against his skin.

He bit down a second later; Dennis swept his hand through Mac’s hair to keep him anchored there, it felt so good. Mac pulled the collar of his sweater to the side for more room, and Dennis’s hips bumped forward lazily. When Mac didn’t react by pulling away or panicking or anything, Dennis sighed again and started to grind steadily forward against his thigh, albeit loose and undemanding. Mac covered the place below his ear he’d just been licking at began to suck.

He blinked up at the ceiling as Mac trailed his lips along Dennis’s jaw, dizzy, his train of thought free from everything except how Mac’s mouth felt on his throat and his hands on his thigh and up under his shirt.

Mac touched the side of Dennis’s face and licked back into his mouth. Dennis leaned into him, his exhale slipping into Mac’s mouth. He stroked down his side, knuckles brushing his ribs so lightly that Mac shivered as he pressed closer and crossed his arms around Dennis’s neck. Dennis let himself roam lower — when he gripped Mac’s thigh he understood the appeal, suddenly, why Mac had spent so long brushing his fingers along Dennis’s. He was warm and _real_ there, the perfect amount of meat to grab at when Mac traced his collarbone beneath his sweater, the perfect amount of vulnerable when Dennis loosely trailed up near his hips.

Mac was — frail wasn’t the right word, Dennis reflected, as he reached to grab at his calf and pull his bent leg further over Dennis’s. Small and warm and familiar, maybe, was what he meant. Touching him was exactly how it felt to look at him, to hear him say Dennis’s name. Dennis knew that family meant screaming fights and hurt and pushing each other down the stairs when their drink-muddled parents weren’t looking, so Mac wasn’t _exactly_ that, but Dennis thought he was okay with Mac being familiar.

Eventually, their already slow kisses started to soften. Dennis circled his finger against the edge of Mac’s jaw as they brought each other down. He could feel Mac’s smile when it bumped his mouth right before he turned it into another, sweeter kiss, his fingers gripping into Dennis’s back.

Dennis shifted, pulling away a little. His thighs slipped against Mac’s where they were still sandwiched together. Mac was just watching him with his lips parted. Dennis framed his face with both hands, and Mac nudged into the touch, scooting closer to him on their shared pillow. Dennis rubbed the pads of his fingers against his jaw, feeling Mac’s breath on the underside of his wrists and the heels of his hands.

Mac reached to loosely encircle Dennis’s wrists, his eyes falling shut as he did. He didn’t exactly pull Dennis away from him, but after a few seconds he tugged aimlessly at him, Dennis dropped his hands from his face.

Mac blinked at him. From this close up, even in the dark Dennis could see how big his pupils were and how shiny-red and bruised his mouth already looked. A small smile tugged at the edges of Dennis’s lips, and after a beat, Mac rolled his eyes and smiled too.

Dennis pulled his hands back all the way. Mac began to shift away as well. He was already halfway back to being on his own pillow again, but he wouldn’t stop looking at Dennis, and that appeared to impede his progress somewhat. At last he tore his eyes off of Dennis’s face, and Dennis glanced down the bed, and Mac pulled away from him completely on a sharp inhale. Maybe the move would have been more effective, were his hands not still clenching on thin air in the space between them. To his credit, at least they weren’t moving on Dennis’s skin anymore.

Dennis painstakingly pulled himself back, too. His eyes traced the soft curve of Mac’s face as he moved away, unsure, wide so that he could try to make out more in the dark. He couldn’t see much, but he could tell that Mac’s whole face was the deep red color of a blush.

Clumsily, he pulled his legs out from where they were still laced with Dennis’s underneath the sheets. Heat dusted the insides of Dennis’s cheeks when everything sort of bumped together, knees and thighs and up between their legs — but finally Mac managed to untangle them without too much damage, and Dennis could breathe out. With a faint smile on his lips, Mac turned over onto his side so he was facing away from him.

“Goodnight, Den,” he mumbled, tucking his hands beneath his head and curling up to go to sleep.

Dennis looked after him for a long moment, still breathless and in slight disbelief. When he felt sure that Mac wasn’t going to turn back around and yank him in by the shirt again, when the steady rise and fall of Mac’s shoulder became too much to bear looking at any longer, Dennis huffed out a laugh and got comfortable in the middle of the bed. He could still see the side of Mac’s cheekbone from here, and the red hadn’t quite faded all the way out of it.

When he closed his eyes, stretching out and curling up as well, he finally felt comfortable enough that he thought he could sleep. Enough time had passed that he didn’t think he’d be stuck lying awake for very much longer, and he wasn’t sure that he’d want to anyway if Mac wasn’t going to stay up and entertain him.

Dennis breathed out. He reached across the space between them, hand closed, until his knuckles bumped up against the back of Mac’s shirt. Dennis bit his lip, waiting; after a couple of seconds, Mac shifted too. He might have even successfully pulled off pretending to be unconscious, did he not move so that Dennis’s fist pressed against his spine with more pressure. Dennis let a small smile curve his mouth as he uncurled his hand, loose fingers brushing against Mac’s back. He finally closed his eyes.

In some other lifetime, if they were different people, somebody would pay for dinner and a night out, and the other would wrap them both in one blanket when they got home and sat down for a movie. They would lean into each other when they started to drift off, maybe, warm fingers brushing through somebody’s hair — and when they laid down for bed, bare skin touching beneath the same set of sheets, one of them would pull the other in by his sweater, and they would finally get to kiss before they said goodnight.

Dennis didn’t know what most people would say, but privately he thought that he could, potentially. Call it a first date. If he wanted to.


End file.
